In cities across France, a number of new bouillon soup-kitchen inspired restaurants are opening for business. Dating back to the 19th century and designed to feed Paris’ working-class masses, for some time these cheap and cheerful places to eat fell out of fashion. Why are they making a comeback today? What makes them so special and what’s the history behind these ‘old school’ eateries whose?

Offering nutritious, affordable meals to Paris’ many labourers was the avant-garde brainchild of the Dutch East India Company in the 19th century. In 1828, the firm opened a chain of small restaurants in the French capital to serve boiled beef bone broth (or “bouillon”) to a burgeoning working-class population. And thus, the bouillon concept was born along with an early form of the inexpensive ‘set meal’. In 1854, the company went out of business and it was at that moment in time that Baptiste-Adolphe Duval made History by becoming the founding father of the bouillon phenomenon.

In the 1850s, Baptiste-Adolphe Duval owned a butcher’s shop on rue Coquillière in Paris’ 1st arrondissement. Since his customers only bought the “prime cuts”, Duval looked for a way of using up all the poor cuts that he couldn’t sell. He came up with the idea of concocting a top quality broth with boiled beef and the cheaper cuts of beef. Hence, in 1854, he went on to open a place on rue de la Monnaie in the historic heart of the city. It was here that he dished up comforting yet simple, hot meals that wouldn’t burn a hole in even the most cash-strapped wallets of the likes of the workers at the local Les Halles wholesale market – formerly known as the “belly of Paris”, named after the title of the Emile Zola novel. Baron Haussmann’s citywide urban planning and renovation works drew thousands of labourers from across France to the capital for work. With all the more mouths to feed, Duval’s initiative was an instant success!

Duval went on to open other canteens around the city including one in an........

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